


Cadence

by Eliot_L



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, Period-Typical Sexism, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8571295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliot_L/pseuds/Eliot_L
Summary: A one-off scene, trial run for an 1896 AU Longmire fic. Comment if you'd like to see it expanded!





	

Dying firelight flickered over the parlor’s mahogany and velvet in the quiet of the evening. Wavering shadow-flags lurked behind the rich green curtains, and the ornate carpet shimmered as a young woman in a black dress continued her needlework. She set down the embroidery hoop to light the oil lamp that stood next to her chair. The struck match illuminated the flame of her hair and showed incipient darkness under her eyes. Adjusting the wick, she heard footsteps along the hallway, the faint clatter of china.

“Oh, Mrs. C, I could’ve done that for you!” The woman in the black dress smiled as the maid set a tray down on the sideboard.

“It’s fine, May, really.” She didn’t mind people fussing over her, much, but she’d certainly had to get used to more of it in the three months since her husband’s untimely death. She looked up at the portrait above the fireplace as May poured her a cup of tea — linden and chamomile, her favorite of an evening. There they were, the young couple, immortalized in smudgy oil paint by a student of John Singer Sargent’s, or so she’d been told. The favored son and the sheriff’s red-haired daughter. That robin’s-egg blue dress she had worn for the sitting was mothballed upstairs, and she imagined it would have to be let out if she ever had occasion to wear it again. _Pity about the mustache_ , she thought, although lately she’d had trouble remembering his face without it. He’d thought it made him look so distinguished and modern, so different from his father’s stodgy white beard. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed half past the hour, and May handed her a fragile, gold-rimmed teacup.

“Will that be all, ma’am?”

“Yes, thank you. Goodnight, May.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. C.” She smiled ruefully into her tea. It had taken five years to convince her maid, a well-spoken Cheyenne woman with children of her own, to accept even this level of informality between them. At least she’d stopped curtseying when there wasn’t company around.

Before May had reached the kitchen, however, footsteps echoed on the wooden porch outside, followed by the clang of the doorbell. The black-haired maid turned and hurried to the door, casting a concerned glance at her employer through the archway between the parlor and the front hall. The young widow set down her tea, unsure who would be calling at such a late hour.

In the echoing hallway, she heard one of the visitors’ voices — her own father’s distinctive, gravelly baritone. The other voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. May’s straight-backed figure re-emerged from the front hall. “Ma’am, your father to see you, and his… deputy.” She was relieved that it wasn’t strangers on her doorstep at half past nine in the evening, but she wondered what her father wanted that couldn’t wait until morning.

She sighed, standing to greet her unexpected guests. “I suppose it must be important. Better show the gentlemen in. That’ll be all for the night, May.” The older woman gave a perfunctory curtsey and left, but not before casting a last bewildered glance at the visitors.

The sheriff had removed his hat and entered the room awkwardly. He was still clumsy with his daughter’s grief, and considering the circumstances that caused it, she didn’t hold it against him. She didn’t hold much of anything against him, truth be told. His companion stood behind him in the hallway, and she was shocked to discover that the visitor May had identified as the sheriff’s deputy was, in fact, a skinny blond woman wearing a man’s pants and a vest emblazoned with a deputy’s star. A revolver was slung across her hip, and she held her own hat in one hand while the handle of a bulging suitcase occupied the other.

Never one to stand on ceremony with her father, she smiled and wove a path around the ornate love seat in front of the fireplace, greeting the sheriff with a warm embrace and a gently-mocking word. “You know, I’m too old for you to come by and tuck me in anymore, Papa.” The sheriff chuckled, letting some of the tension out of his posture. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend? I don’t believe we’ve met, formally.”

“Well, this here’s, ah, Miss Victoria Moretti. She’s one of my deputies.” The sheriff’s daughter raised her eyebrows at this. Wyoming had been one of the first states in the Union to give women the vote, and she’d heard tell of women serving in government in some places, but a woman with a deputy’s badge and gun, and wearing trousers? It certainly heralded the modern era. She inclined her head toward the woman, who smiled nervously in response. “She’s in need of a place to stay, and I thought, with that new saloon open t’other end of the park now, well, I just don’t feel too safe with you all alone in this house at night.” From the look of it, she wasn’t going to be able to argue this one, no matter how inconvenient it was for her in the moment. And she had to admit, the saloon’s clientèle was occasionally rowdy, although nowhere near as debauched as she had once feared.

She glanced at the blonde deputy and gave her father a resigned smile. “It’s not at all necessary. May and I are both plenty handy with a pistol.” The sheriff grimaced and turned his hat nervously in his hands. “I suppose Christian charity compels me to take you in, though, if nothing else.”

The sheriff nodded. “Thanks, Pumpkin. You know I’m just trying to look out for you.” She saw Moretti raise an eyebrow at this childhood nickname.

The taffeta of her black dress rustled conspicuously as she ushered her father to the front door and bid him goodnight. Her new houseguest’s mannish figure was silhouetted in the darkened foyer as she pondered what to do next. “It’s late, Deputy Moretti, and I’ve sent the maid to bed, so why don’t you take the upstairs study for the night. I can have May make up one of the guest rooms in the morning.” She felt a strange disloyalty allowing someone else to sleep in her husband’s room, even though it had been little used for this purpose during their marriage. “It’s at the top of the stairs, just on the left, and there’s a water closet at the end of the hall.”

“Sorry to put you out like this, ma’am. I do appreciate it.” They exchanged a knowing look, and the young widow smiled wanly. If this woman worked for her father, she was surely familiar with his fierce protectiveness that sometimes strained practicality. “Goodnight, ma’am.” Deputy Moretti made her way up the stairs with her unwieldy suitcase.

Finally alone, the lady of the house retrieved a few letters from the table in the hallway. Condolences still trickled in, although nothing like the deluge she had received in the first few weeks of her widowhood. Most were addressed to her married name, except for one black-edged envelope whose return address was a girls’ school in Philadelphia. She put this letter at the top of the small stack. These weekly missives from her close childhood friend, who had become something of a dangerous bluestocking, were the highlight of her days. From the description of some of her escapades, though, she did worry that Louisa wouldn’t be able to retain her teaching position much longer. But perhaps these were embellished for the reader’s benefit — neither of them could resist a good tall tale. As she made her way up the dark staircase, she smiled, thinking of her correspondent’s clever ink-stained fingers inscribing her name on the envelope in scratchy penmanship.

_Mrs. Cadence Mary Connally, née Longmire._


End file.
